The Rubber and The Stone
by Bye11
Summary: A post "The Squab and the Quail" story.


**A/N: I know there are many post 5x21 stories. I hope you don't mind too much the umpteenth version of it. Enjoy! **

"Castle, where are we going?"

"To the bedroom. Come on, you're going to love this."

She paused at his brush-off. She was tempted by the full-body massage but her head wouldn't stop screaming.

"I just have to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back".

She closed the door behind her and tried to put her thoughts in order.

When she had first met Castle, she had been in a dark place and she had needed his light. His jokes, his making every case a playground, his being a five-year old on a sugar-rush. He had reminded her that life at the end was nothing more than a collection of single moments and it was his mission to make most of them fun. For her, for them, for the precinct.

Now that she had worked through her biggest problems, now that she and Castle were an item she saw his behavior for what it really was. An avoiding tactic. Too engrained in his DNA for him to even notice but an avoiding tactic nonetheless. He had worked tirelessly to destroy the wall she had built ever since her mother's death. She, on the other hand, kept bumping over his personal rubber wall. Soft, with no hard edges, but still perfectly able to keep her out of his most intimate place. Why would he go to all the trouble to have her, if then he wanted only a one-sided relationship? Or worse than that, if his main goal was to have fun?

She was getting more and more convinced that Meredith had been right. Rick had literally wrote a series of books on her and she, even being a detective, could not figure out why he was so adamant in avoiding any talk about the future.

He had promised "Always" long before she had even entertained the possibility of a serious relationship between the two of them and now that they were supposed to live that always, he seemed to want to take day-by-day without ever looking forward. She had believed herself the reluctant one, but now that she wanted some roots, that she needed from him the minimal confirmation that "Always" was still on his mind, he refused to give it. Not openly, of course, but systematically.

Had he unwrapped all of Kate Beckett's layers and was now bored and so not willing to commit on a longer term? Was she the placeholder for the new muse? Were they repeating the history of Castle and Sophie?

The words of his exes, those words she had put in the darkest corner of her mind twisted and turned, repeating themselves on a loop and torturing her.

"But afterward it was like that tension was all we had, really. And without it all we were left with were those things that drove us crazy about each other."

"One day I realized he knew everything about me. My deepest secrets, my worst pain, enough to fill a million novels but I didn't know enough about him to even write a pamphlet...Soufflés are wonderful but sooner or later they always fall."

She had discarded their opinions because she had weighed them on the women they were. Sophia was a psychopath killer spy and Meredith made it all about herself, and was the kind of woman that spent time with her daughter whenever fancy struck her.

But the doubts were creeping back in and she needed him to quiet them. Not with a joke, not with a smirk. With a real conversation.

* * *

She emerged from the bathroom and found him lying on the bed, waiting. As soon as he perceived her presence he got up and enclosed her in his arms.

"There is something wrong, isn't there? If this is still about Vaughn..."

"Why didn't you answer my question earlier, Castle? And please don't play the fool with me. You know it doesn't work."

"Honestly, Kate?"

She managed to temper the snappy remark she had come up as an answer but her look was probably still quite annoyed. She wouldn't be asking for a lie.

"Honestly."

He didn't let her go, which she took as a good sign.

"Honestly, Kate, I am afraid of answering."

"Why?"

Was he scared to admit that the flame was fading between them and didn't want to hurt her?

"I'm not sure how you will react to my answer. Me playing with video-games instead of spending time with you was never about taking you for granted, Kate. It was about me feeling secure in our relationship to let myself relax. It was about us trusting each other's love enough to believe that even if we pass our time doing different things that doesn't mean that we are in any way less committed to each other, or that I am less attracted to you. The simple idea sounds ridiculous. After all this time, Kate, have I still not proven that you're the woman I have always wanted? That I will want forever? So when you ask me about where we are going, I don't know how to answer. I love you, Kate. Always is much more than just a word when it comes to you but if you need the constant reminder that you mean everything to me, that losing you would cripple me as much as losing Alexis or my mother, then I don't truly know if I am the man for you. I haven't even asked you to say those three words because I know how difficult it must be but it seems you still want me to prove my love to you every moment of every day. I'll do it, Kate. Loving you is as natural as breathing. Showing you that love is not any more difficult than that. But if I have to be en garde forever, then I have to put myself in that mainframe."

His speech shocked her. She had been parched for love for so long that now one sip didn't seem to be enough. She wanted more and more. He was right. She was testing him day after day, waiting for him to fail, to disappoint her, so she could run back to what she had always been comfortable with. She was putting the bar of her standards higher and higher so that one day he was bound not to meet them.

But if she acknowledged this, she expected him to acknowledge that he had been buttoned up in return.

"I'm sorry, Castle, I didn't even realize I was doing it. I just... I want you to let me him. I want you to show me all the sides I haven't seen yet. I want you to not be afraid of telling me about your past or your future plans, especially if they involve me."

He smiled and pecked her lips. His grip on her tightened before letting her talk again.

"Let me be your Castle, Castle. Let me be the shoulder to cry on, the voice of reason when you need it the most."

"The voice of reason?"

"Fine, let me be your half-Castle, how about that?"

"How about instead you're just the Beckett I love? I have pushed you so hard to open up and maybe I have made the same mistake. One more sign we are meant for each other. Whenever you want to know something, ask. Whenever I joke on serious matters, drag me to reality if you think I am just avoiding. You are the only one who can do it, Kate. The only one."

Somehow those words were precisely what she wanted to hear. She didn't need him to volunteer the information. She needed his permission to dig, his admission that there was some work to do. She felt reassured and all of a sudden sure that if they managed to talk like that night, Castle & Beckett would last until death did them part. Maybe even further, considering that his novels had immortalized their love story.

"Ok, then."

"Just ok? I haven't answered your question. Where are we going? To our bedroom. Tonight, tomorrow..."

And then as in the ending of the cheesy movies she so hated they both tumbled to the bed saying their code word.

"Always."


End file.
